51–60 of 131 posts
Would it be too gushing of me to say that Twitter is by far the most heroic of the large tech companies in the US? Good for them!
[1] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-google-v-nsa-lawsuit-to-proce...
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"Geez" ? Twitter is a business. Whatever they do is preceded by the expenses vs benefits analysis. In this case the only benefit is an improvement of their public reputation. They want to disassociate themselves with the state surveillance machine. However this lawsuit means an absolute zilch in terms of an actual surveillance issue. Nor does it move a needle on the very fact that there NSLs exist to begin with. It s…
Yes "Geez" Look I get it, you don't think what Twitter is doing adds any value and thats great but in reality you are just being smug and not really adding any value to the conversation. You are just trying to spread your smug dim view of the world and you aren't really helping anything by doing so. Instead of always looking for the negative or the cynical view in things like this like "Well they are just doing this…
> Instead of always looking for the negative or the cynical
view in things like this like "Well they are just doing
this for the PR", why not look at it and say "This is
awesome that a company is fighting in court to release
this type of information to the public." It really will
change your view of the world if you start looking at
positive and will improve your life dramatically.
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Voters will only demand it if they are informed. Voters will only be informed if both social and traditional media are able to provide actionable, verifiable and non-biased reports. Media will only be able to provide quality information when political, intelligence and profit interests have less leverage than an educated purchasing public majority. Political/intelligence interests will only have have less leverage if…
>Voters will only demand it if they are informed. By and large the public know about the Patriot act and support it, you may disagree but don't pretend they don't know about it. >Voters will only be informed if both social and traditional media are able to provide actionable, verifiable and non-biased reports. The reports are there yet the public has yet to be swayed. >Media will only be able to provide quality infor…
> Rolling back freedom of speech is a non-starter.
* Governments have a free speech right to propaganda. (The techniques I suggested 'rolling back' are only used for the purposes of propaganda).
> Media can and do provide quality information.
* Despite barriers and through mires of conflicting accounts, the media is able to effectively report information to a public that doesn't pay it and is able to ignore the influence of the institutions that do.
> By and large the public know about the Patriot act and support it...
* The public has wildly different opinions about the effectiveness of Obamacare than it does the Affordable Healthcare Act. Despite countless examples like this it is because of an efficient and reliable news system that the American public has a good sense of politics, the issues that the country faces, the trade-offs inherent to national legislature and how domestic bills fit into larger policy goals and geopolitics. There is no politicization of the media, or where there is it is recognized, sourced and understood as a defining piece of narrative context.
> The reports are there yet the public has yet to be swayed.
* But despite this really good reporting there's a real debate about whether global and ubiquitous surveillance, espionage and sabotage is legitimized by counter-terror purposes even when the programs in question have nothing to do with terrorism.
> We need to convince voters that the Patriot Act is bad not pretend they have been victims of mind control.
Information control. Don't burn too many calories on the straw man.
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Think of it in crypto terms. If you can know when an investigation is ongoing, you can learn something useful as an adversary.
It's the US government... They're always investigating, and always collecting all information they can coerce or steal in order to conduct future investigations or use as blackmail.
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Well, as a good software-engineer-and-qualified-lawyer friend of mine has said, "the power of the law is in its capacity for vagueness". I often wish law was written more like a computer program, with lots of unit tests up front. But I have no idea how to actually achieve that. Real life is so much more complex than input to any computer program that an attempt to formalise law even more than it already is formalised…
I've always thought a good starting point would be to hook up Watson or similar software up to LexisNexis or Westlaw. Would be lovely to run a new ToS or Privacy Policy through such software and see where it breaks down.
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Totally, when I first started learning and caring more about the law I came up with all these clever hacks around various legal agreements and laws... Luckily for me I had friends who went to Law School to explain to me that the law is primarily about intent and most of my hacks weren't loopholes but instead plainly in the wrong and would be dealt with in court if they hadn't already through case law. I think its pre…
Well, as a good software-engineer-and-qualified-lawyer friend of mine has said, "the power of the law is in its capacity for vagueness". I often wish law was written more like a computer program, with lots of unit tests up front. But I have no idea how to actually achieve that. Real life is so much more complex than input to any computer program that an attempt to formalise law even more than it already is formalised…
Take a law like: No driving a motor vehicle in the park.
Obviously that means no cars, but does a wheelchair count? How about a power assisted bike?
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One way to achieve some degree of both might be a time limited embargo on disclosure of particular cases.
That's the equivalent of adding jitter to try to foul up a timing attack. It doesn't really work.
In your analogy, it would be closer to someone logging and then disclosing the fact they had logged in at some point (years) in the future.
(FWIW, I am not a security researcher, but I've heard about how these things work. Would love to be corrected if wrong. :) )
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That's the equivalent of adding jitter to try to foul up a timing attack. It doesn't really work.
Not exactly. A timing attack relies on targeting an ongoing process. If you disclose after the investigation is complete, then there's nothing to attack. In your analogy, it would be closer to someone logging and then disclosing the fact they had logged in at some point (years) in the future. (FWIW, I am not a security researcher, but I've heard about how these things work. Would love to be corrected if wrong. :) )